How to rebuild Springfield: The Simpsons: Tapped Out hints, tips, and tricks

EA's The Simpsons: Tapped Out first landed on Apple's App Store back in March, but was quickly pulled by the gaming giant due to the "server issues" it was having.

It's now back. For those of you who didn't pick it up first time around, it tasks you with rebuilding Springfield after it's destroyed by a large explosion at Mr Burns's nuclear power plant.

Since rebuilding an entire town is such hard work, we've decided to lend a helping hand. You're very welcome.

The Basics

The Simpsons: Tapped Out may make fun of in-app purchase-packed free-to-play titles like Beeline's Smurfs' Village, but EA's build-'em-up is no stranger to premium currencies, either.

Basically, this title has two forms of currency: good ol' fashioned American dollars (simply called Money), which you earn frequently by completing tasks and collecting from your many houses and shops; and Donuts, which you earn in small amounts as you level-up.

Naturally, you can also purchase the latter currency from the in-game store for real-world moolah. You can buy as little as 12 Donuts for £1.49 / $1.99 or go a little bit crazy and grab 2400 of the sugary snacks for a whopping £69.99 / $99.99.

Money can be spent on new buildings like houses, as well as a variety of decorations, such as trees and shrubs.

Donuts, on the other hand, can be spent to speed-up construction delays, and purchase extra-interesting premium buildings that generally increase the amount of Money and experience points (XP) that you earn when you complete an activity.

Experienced handler

Every time you collect revenue from your various homes and businesses or complete a task in The Simpsons: Tapped Out, you'll receive XP as a reward. Like in almost every other game ever, XP is needed to level-up, which allows you to purchase additional content from the in-game store.

The final stat that you have to think about is your conform-o-meter, which ranks you out of five stars and grants you permanent Money and XP bonuses. To increase your star rating, you have to boost your indolence, consumerism, tree-hugging, vanity, obedience, gluttony, righteousness, and socialism stats.

This is a lot easier than it sounds. Simply tap your star rating, which is located in the bottom-left of your device's screen, and you'll be able to tap on each stat for tips on how to improve it.

You can boost your tree-hugging stat, for example, by planting more and more trees, and increase your gluttony stat by constructing restaurants.

While you shouldn't focus solely on boosting these stats, we suggest you keep an eye on them as you play, and improve them when you think you can do so without any real effort. You're likely to enhance a few of them through general play, anyway.

Rebuilding effort

There are lots of different buildings in The Simpsons: Tapped Out - many of which come complete with one or more characters from Matt Groening's immensely popular animated TV series.

Each character you unlock can be given a job. Homer, for example, can be instructed to spend a couple of minutes playing with his myPad tablet, or told to break into the neighbour's house and watch their TV.

Jobs take varying amounts of time to complete, and award varying amounts of Money and XP. Naturally, the longer a job takes, the bigger the rewards you'll receive.

With that being said, if you don't think you'll be playing The Simpsons: Tapped Out for the next four hours, don't give Homer a job that only takes 12 seconds to complete. The rewards will be minimal and he'll be standing around doing absolutely nothing for a few hours until you return to the game. Put simply, it's a waste.

If, however, you're going to be inside the app until your iPad's battery runs dry, quick jobs are the way to go. You'll earn more rewards from two 12-second jobs than you will from a single 24-second job, after all.

Special constructions

During the early stages of The Simpsons: Tapped Out, we suggest that you only construct the buildings and hand out the jobs that the game tells you to. You can find these in the task book, which is located in the bottom-left of your device's screen next to the XP bar.

Do this for at least four to five levels and you should be in a perfect position to exercise a little freedom and begin to design a new Springfield on your own.

If you do follow The Simpsons: Tapped Out's prompts, one of the first buildings you'll add to your town is Cletus's Farm, which allows you to grow crops for profit. Similarly to character jobs, choose crops that fit around your playing cycle. If you don't, they'll wilt and become useless when you don't harvest them quickly enough.

Crops generally decay at the same rate that they grow. So, if you plant a crop that takes 45 seconds to grow, be sure you're around to harvest it within 45 seconds of its completion.

General tips

- Instruct Homer to play with his myPad as soon as you gain access to it. While he's fiddling with it, tap on him around ten times and you'll be given ten complimentary Donuts and a free Jebediah statue, which maxes out your vanity rating. You can only do this once.

- Visit Other Springfield and any of your buddies who're also playing The Simpsons: Tapped Out on a daily basis. You can earn Money and XP by tapping on three buildings in each of their towns.

- Don't waste your Donuts. We know it's very tempting to make your crops grow instantly or force Homer to complete a six-hour job in seconds, but it's a waste of your premium currency.

- Spend Donuts on helpful premium items that you can't gain access to otherwise. Purchasing a Springfield Sign, for example, will give you a 4.50 per cent Money and XP bonus every time one of your characters completes a job.